


Not Quite Strictly Ballroom, Not Quite Dirty Dancing

by desert_neon (sproutgirl)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: A five times fic, Dancing, Flirting, M/M, SHIELD, SHIELD function, but not really formatted that way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-20
Updated: 2015-11-20
Packaged: 2018-05-02 12:50:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5248856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sproutgirl/pseuds/desert_neon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SHIELD holds an annual formal event to test junior agents' undercover readiness in a formal setting. Lately, a tradition has started, in which two of SHIELD's most badass agents steal the dance floor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Quite Strictly Ballroom, Not Quite Dirty Dancing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hoosierbitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoosierbitch/gifts).



> This is a birthday fic for the wonderful, talented, and lovely [hoosierbitch](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hoosierbitch/pseuds/hoosierbitch). It's several days late, and for that I am very sorry. She asked for Clint and Phil at their first SHIELD function since they started dating. This is not quite that, and for that I am also very sorry. I hope you like it anyway, darling!

“Agent Barton.”

Clint turned at the voice, already familiar after just a week under Coulson’s handlership. “Sir.”

“I’ve been getting reports that you’ve been skipping out on some of your classes. Care to explain?”

Clint would have tugged at the collar and bowtie around his neck, but that would have been a dead giveaway and, anyway, eyes were everywhere. As stupid as he thought this mock formal event was, he had to pass if he wanted to stay on Coulson’s team. “Just the ones I don’t need, sir.”

One eyebrow twitched up at that. “You don’t need French lessons?”

“Non, merci. Je parle déjà français. Qu'est ce que tu croyais? That I’d just skip out on something because I didn’t like it?”

“Yes, actually,” Coulson admitted, but he softened the blow with a tiny quirk at the corner of his lips. “The fact that you speak French is not in your file.”

“Nobody asked,” Clint replied with a shrug.

“All right, I’ll bite. Agent Barton, do you possess any other special skills SHIELD should know about? That is to say, any skills that could potentially aid you, your colleagues, or the organization in the future?”

“Besides the acrobatics, parkour, close-quarters combat, and sniper skills?”

“Besides those,” Coulson agreed, and the other corner of his lips turned up as well, and fuck if his eyes weren’t downright _twinkling_ at Clint.

Clint thought of the dance floor across the room, where junior agents were currently waltzing for their handlers and instructors, hoping to qualify (as they all were) for undercover work. He thought of the dance classes he’d skipped out on, of the baby steps they’d started him off with before he’d lost his patience and walked out. Mostly, though, he looked at Agent Coulson’s amused, handsome face and thought, _Fuck_.

Then he thought, _fuck it_. If Coulson was yet another handler who couldn’t handle Clint’s spontaneity or his sparkling personality, then he might as well find out now, before he got in too deep. He grabbed Coulson’s hand and squared up, somewhat surprised when Coulson’s body immediately fell into line. “I can dance.”

Coulson, the fucker, laughed. But he also fell into step with Clint, allowing himself to be led in a waltz that should not have been as sexy as it turned out to be.

 

_________

 

“Sir.” 

Coulson turned, and Clint knew him well enough to see the small spark in his eye. “Barton. Thank you for coming.”

“Wasn’t aware I had much of a choice.”

“You always have a choice, especially for something like this.”

Clint took an obvious glance around the decorated room and lifted one eyebrow. “For the baby agents’ version of prom?”

“For an undercover job that may make you uncomfortable. And it wasn’t that long ago it was your own prom, Agent Barton.”

“That I passed with flying colors. I graduated, sir. It kind of sucks that I’m back in summer school. But for the record,” he added, “playing your arm candy does not make me uncomfortable.”

“Glad to hear it. And I’m sorry to pull you in last minute, but with Agent Braithwaite down, I’ll need a new partner on this one. Someone I know can think on his feet and will follow my lead.” Coulson tilted his head and twinkled again. “Literally.”

Clint snorted, but he felt his own mouth betray him with a smile. “All right, all right,” he said grudgingly, ignoring how Coulson’s trust made him feel. “So now I need to test out in dancing backwards.”

“At least you don’t have to do it in heels,” Coulson offered, with a tilt of his head towards Agent Morse, who was killing it in four inch stilettos.

“And thanks for not making that part of the cover.”

Coulson hummed and offered his hands. “We need Finn Coleman’s paramour to be young and beautiful, Barton, not young and fabulous.”

Clint laughed and slotted himself into Coulson’s space, all his old lessons with Graciela, Pilar, and Ignacio rushing back to him. Grace and confidence, they had insisted, were the keys to every successful performance. “Got you covered there, boss,” he said with a wink, and waited for Coulson to start.

Coulson led with ease, a firm hand on Clint’s back. Clint picked up his subtle signals quickly, and soon they were making quite a scene on the dance floor. Again. They moved steadily around the other couples, Clint grinning each time he was prompted into a twirl or spin or sudden quickstep maneuver.

Coulson was grinning too, more obviously than normal even, and surprised Clint at the end of the dance by pulling him in close, so that they were chest to chest, before shifting his hands and dipping Clint low to the ground. Clint bit his lip to keep from laughing and decided to put a little flair into the move, stretching one leg out and arching his back in Coulson’s grip.

“So what do you think, sir?” Clint asked in the awkward stretch of time before Coulson brought him back up. “Do I qualify?”

Coulson nodded sharply and hauled Clint to his feet, something Clint was determined not to be impressed by. “Yes, Agent Barton. I believe you’ll do.”

It was Clint’s turn to nod sharply then, because what had he been expecting? Effusive praise? “Glad to hear it. Permission to get out of this monkey suit?”

Coulson seemed to soften a bit, but he only inclined his head one more time. “You’re dismissed, Agent Barton.”

Clint gave a jaunty little faux salute, then made his way out of the makeshift ballroom, ignoring the way some people were trying not to stare. And, really, he thought. They should make that a test for undercover preparedness too. _Good at ignoring Agents Coulson and Barton half seducing each other on the dance floor and the subsequent coolness between them? Check. Congratulations, you are now ready to be a spy!_

 

_________

 

“Agent Barton. How did you get roped into this evening’s soiree?”

“Gee, sir, I have no idea. It would seem that _someone_ out there made mention of my skills on the dance floor, and now here I am, ready to help judge all these poor young’uns on a pass/fail basis.”

“Well, don’t be too hard on them. Not everyone has your natural fluidity.”

Clint wasn’t fooled by Coulson’s passivity one bit. He knew flirting when he heard it. He’d been hearing it a little more often lately too, though he didn’t dare get his hopes up just yet. “What about you, sir? What duties do you have as chaperone at this little shindig? Checking they eat their salads with the correct fork? Or that they can manage escargot without flinging it across the room?”

“I am not Hector Elizondo, Barton, and they are not Julia Roberts.”

“Aw, c’mon, Coulson. I’ve seen you pull the meek little manager routine too many times. Complete with the misplaced attempt at handing out a business card. You are totally ‘Bernard Thompson, manager of the hotel, sir.’” Which was not true. Coulson was actually Richard Gere in the comparison—powerful, confident, and sexy—he just excelled at pretending otherwise.

Coulson finally cracked a smile and turned away from the bar. “I am actually here to start polite conversations with them, on a wide range of topics, and subtly try to extract information.”

Clint nodded, because that made sense. No one did innocent and bland better than Coulson, even as he talked his target into giving away all kinds of secrets. Sitwell, Coulson’s protégé, was good at it too, and it seemed as though he was already going for it, leading a young junior agent out onto the dance floor.

The dinner hadn’t started yet, though the music had, and Clint impulsively turned to Coulson and offered his hand. “What do you say, sir? It’s practically a tradition at this point.”

Coulson shook his head with a smile, but he took Clint’s hand. “What the hell. Can’t disappoint the rumor mill.”

Clint laughed and took his handler to the dance floor, where they burned through a rumba that left Clint winded, though not from exertion. Coulson seemed to have the same problem—Clint could tell because he was pressed all along the man’s back at the end, with his hand firmly on Coulson’s chest. The rise and fall of Coulson’s sternum was nothing next to the quick beat Clint could feel under his palm.

“Thanks for the dance, sir,” Clint said, and it wasn’t like he meant for it to come out all husky and seductive, and right by Coulson’s ear, but he felt a slight shiver run up his handler’s spine anyway.

“As you said,” Coulson answered, his right hand coming up to squeeze Clint’s briefly. “It’s tradition.”

Then he extricated himself from Clint’s grip, and crossed the room to strike up a conversation with a group of juniors who were actually doing a good job of pretending they hadn’t been watching.

 

_________

 

Clint sulked by the dance floor, barely paying attention to the junior agents he was supposed to be judging. Coulson was all the way across the room, determinedly ignoring Clint and trying to extract information from a young blond woman known only as Agent Thirteen. (Coulson had hinted, before the whole debacle that had been Krakow, that she was related to someone well known within SHIELD, and was trying to avoid both unfair expectations and nepotism.)

“I don’t think staring at the back of his head is going to get you anywhere.”

Clint didn’t startle, but only because the reflex had long been trained out of him. “What are you doing here?”

Natasha shrugged. “I was told there may be a show. Some kind of traditional dance?”

Clint scowled. “Not this time, I think.” Possibly not ever again.

Natasha said nothing for a moment, staring across the room at the back of Coulson’s head right along with Clint. Then, “You made your choice. It has its consequences. Such is life.”

“Wow. Thanks. And the fact that I didn’t kill you gets me no sympathy?”

She shrugged. “I am grateful, but my debt will not be paid by indulging your childish behavior.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” he said, because she didn’t. 

“I do.”

“You—”

“I do.”

Clint let it drop. Maybe she’d learn, in time, that SHIELD agents tended to pay it forward. But if she needed to keep score, so to speak, well, he’d go with it. No need to make the adjustment even harder on her.

Across the room, Coulson approached a handsome young man Clint knew to be training as a sniper.

Clint turned to Natasha. “You dance, right?”

“Of course.”

“Well then. They’re playing our samba.”

She regarded him steadily for a moment, then took his hand. They played off each other beautifully, their long sparring sessions translating well to the dance floor. Natasha was sex in motion, and Clint did his best to keep up, making sure to sway and posture with every step.

Clint grinned at her when it was over, and she kissed his cheek before drifting away. It wasn’t until he glanced around the room, his chest tightening when he realized Coulson was gone, that he realized he hadn’t been breathless at all.

 

_________

 

“But, sir! It’s tradition!”

“It _was_ tradition, Barton. It’s different now.”

“Is not. Or, well, it is,” Clint amended, “but nobody here knows that.”

“People will talk.”

“They’ve always talked. Except this time they’ll be mostly right, but it’s not like they know that. C’mon, Phil. If we don’t, they’ll only talk more. They’ll say Nat really did get between us, and then you’ll have to file all kinds of paperwork when she kills them.”

Phil rubbed his nose wearily, and Clint knew the tell for what it was. Phil was about to give in. “It would serve them right for gossiping,” he said, but he followed it up with a sigh he didn’t really mean and squared his shoulders. “I get to lead.”

“Deal.” Clint took Phil’s hand and laughed as the music changed just as they reached the dance floor. “Oh, hell yeah.”

People were already making space in anticipation, word of past performances clearly having gotten round. Phil gave Clint a familiar look of exasperation and indulgence as they stepped into a starting position, but then he was pulling Clint tightly against his chest and maneuvering his leg out to start the sexiest tango of Clint’s life. He swept Clint along, leading and teasing and just moving against Clint in ways that shouldn’t have been legal in public.

Clint went with it. He bent and arched and ground his hips and his ass against Phil whenever he could. He ran his hands over Phil’s shoulders, his arms, his chest. He took a pause every now and then, to hold a pose, to feel Phil’s strong hands keeping him in place. They circled the dance floor again and again, breath mingling and bodies entwined.

“I think the jig’s up, sir,” Clint whispered when it was over and they’d held the final pose for too long, chest to chest and hip to hip, legs tangled and eyes locked.

“Good,” Phil replied, and Clint smiled and met him for the kiss.

 

 

 

—the end—


End file.
